Robert Johnson, Mythmaking, and Contemporary American Culture (Music in American Life)
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Published: June 14, 2004
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 216
ISBN-13: 9780252029158
Subjects: Biography: film, television & music; Blues; Cultural studies; Literary studies: general; Biography / Autobiography; American English; Poetry; USA; Composers & Musicians - Country & Folk; Folklore & Mythology; Genres & Styles - Blues; Music / Blues; General; Blues (Music); Criticism and interpretation; History and criticism; Johnson, Robert,; Social aspects; d. 1938
First sentence: Robert Leroy Johnson was born in Hazelhurst, Mississippi, on 8 May 1911.
Description: "Suddenly Robert Johnson is everywhere. Though the Mississippi bluesman died young and recorded only twenty-nine songs, the legacy, legend, and lore surrounding him continue to grow. Focusing on these developments, Patricia R. Schroeder's Robert Johnson, Mythmaking, and Contemporary American Culture breaks new ground in Johnson scholarship, going beyond simple or speculative biography to explore him in his larger role as a contemporary cultural icon." "Part literary analysis, part cultural criticism, and part biographical study, Robert Johnson, Mythmaking, and Contemporary American Culture shows the Robert Johnson of today to be less a two-dimensional character fixed by the few known facts of his life than a dynamic and contested set of ideas." "Represented in novels, in plays, and even on a postage stamp, he provides inspiration for "highbrow" cultural artifacts - such as poems - as well as Hollywood movies and T-shirts. Schroeder's detailed and scholarly analysis directly engages key images and stories about Johnson (such as the Faustian crossroads exchange of his soul for guitar virtuosity), navigating the many competing interpretations that swirl around him to reveal the cultural purposes these stories and their tellers serve." "Robert Johnson, Mythmaking, and Contemporary American Culture is essential reading for cultural critics and blues fans alike."--BOOK JACKET.